The Ground of Prose: William Hazlitts art of critical essay writing

Abstract

This research aims at analyzing the work of the English critic and essay-writer William Hazlitt (1778-1830) from a group of images which binds the workmanship involved in the act of critical literary-creation to topographical conditions and the texture of the soil, as expressed in the archetype recurrent in his works, "the ground of prose". Our point of departure is a close reading of a few passages where the critic meditates on his own metiê. From Hazlitt's notion that the use of concepts when not carved on images can never define the task of the critic, our hypothesis is that there is an analogy between the critical essay writing and the difficulties intermingled on the artist's making. In this sense, an attention to some formal elements of the author's essays is invaluable to this research. At the same time, because Hazlitt never lost sight of a world to which he frequently stood in opposition, some historical and cultural aspects that involve him and his period, as long as they are stamped in his writings, play a capital role in this research. (AU)